Legal Planet reviews the IPCC

Congratulations to our LP colleagues Sean Hecht and Dan Farber for having been designated as expert reviewers of the IPCC 5th assessment report, to be published in 2014. They will be reviewing the drafts issued by Working Group II, which assesses climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. The IPCC’s assessment reports, written every five to seven years, have not been without controversy but remain the most authoritative and prominent summaries of the science of climate change, crafted by teams of leading scientists and resulting in projections used by policymakers worldwide. (See the late, great Steve Schneider’s book “Science as a Contact Sport” for a fascinating inside view of how the assessments are developed.)

For adaptation questions in particular, it’s great that reviewers will include those squarely in the law and policy world, like Sean and Dan.